Tech gone wrong? Re-alignment of Your Company’s Digitalization Journey

Have you already embarked on digitalization but now find yourself in a less-than-optimized position in terms of technology streamlining? This is especially true if you already use different technology solutions, including Google Sheets, POS systems, Slack, etc., but end up having to invest time and energy collating data from multiple platforms.

Digitalization is not just about using tech. Its a change in the company mindset, skillset and toolset. 

A Common Story of Digitalization Gone Wrong

A typical situation goes like this: different teams require solutions to help them do their work better. They seek out a digital solution to solve that specific problem, often selecting the solution that seems to solve the issue at hand most cost-effectively. A growing company often has many different departments, from Human Resources, Sales, Marketing, and Operations to Finance. 

Each department is likely to have different needs, causing each department to seek out individual software solutions. When it comes to reporting the different areas of information to management, considerable effort is needed to collate information from the different software solutions used by individual departments.

Embarking on this journey of unifying your various digital solutions can prove to be rather intimidating at the beginning, especially because it requires a great deal of vision, planning, and determination to see the project through.

You have read and heard about how leveraging technology on one platform can help you transform your business. Yet many companies that embark on the journey of digitalization encounter challenges.

Most start digitalization without first understanding the various needs of individual departments and often do not have a clear vision of the desired outcome. It does not help that technology moves fast and what was impossible at one moment can become possible.

So how can we implement technology that helps us accelerate our growth instead of becoming another source of business complication?

Although the needs in different industries vary, here are some common issues that arise:

Digitalization Architecture for All Departments

Many companies may commit to beginning their digitalization journey without realizing the importance of a well-thought-out digitalization strategy.

Without a well-planned digitalization blueprint, businesses can encounter the following issues:

1. technology incompatibility
2. duplication of efforts
3. higher costs of ownership
4. confusion among different teams
5. lack of scalability
6. risks of data security due to multiple access points, and
7. inefficient resource allocation

Therefore, a planned digitalization architecture offers benefits such as standardization, cost efficiency, improved data management, streamlined processes, and enhanced collaboration across departments. It ensures that technology investments align with business objectives and support overall corporate strategy, rather than creating silos of disparate systems that can hinder efficiency and scalability.

For instance, here are some benefits for different departments:

IT Department

Standardization and Integration: Planned digitalization allows the IT department to standardize technologies and integrate them more seamlessly across departments. This reduces the need for integrations, compatibility issues, and enhances overall system reliability.

Centralized Management: Managing security protocols, data governance, and compliance requirements becomes easier when technologies are centrally planned and implemented.

Finance Department

Cost Efficiency: With a planned architecture, the finance department can benefit from bulk purchasing and licensing agreements, reducing overall costs associated with technology procurement.

Company-Specific Reporting and Analysis: Centralized systems enable better integration of financial data from various departments, facilitating more accurate reporting and analysis.

Franchise Unit Related Financial Data: Data related to franchise units may be stored on a separate database but presented on a similar platform without convoluting it with the headquarters’ data. This allows the franchisor to provide coaching services to the franchised units to help them grow more efficiently.

Operations and Production

Streamlined Processes: Digitalization architecture can streamline production processes, automate routine tasks, and improve efficiency in operations. It ensures that technologies are compatible and complementary.

Real-Time Monitoring: Integrated systems allow for real-time monitoring of production metrics, inventory levels, and supply chain activities, enabling proactive decision-making.

Quality and Compliance Management: Quality performance tools like operations manuals, checklists, and audit programs can be implemented across the company, and results collated in one database. This reduces the need for  operations managers to go to different platforms to input information and then to collate all operations-related information onto yet another report.

Sales and Marketing

Customer Insights: A unified digital architecture can provide a centralized customer database and analytics tools, allowing the sales and marketing departments to gain deeper insights into customer behavior and preferences.

Campaign Management: Integrated systems enable more effective campaign management across multiple channels, ensuring consistency in messaging and better targeting.

Human Resources

Talent Management: Centralized HR systems can streamline recruitment, onboarding, and talent management processes, enhancing employee experience and retention.

Training and Development: Planned digitalization supports consistent delivery of training programs and access to learning resources across departments, fostering continuous employee development.

Tracking of Individual Talent Development: Being able to track the growth and progress of individuals will provide insights into the overall performance of specific business units and team motivation.

In essence, laying out the key digitalization architecture for your business will help you go beyond just adopting technology. This will help you lead your team to deliver faster and more painlessly, as well as prevent unneeded detours and distractions.

Digitalization Best Practices and Know-How

It is important to state here that having the right intent and the right tool is insufficient. This is akin to having the right mindset and toolset but not the right skillset. There need to be stakeholders within the company who are willing to set the standards and develop the processes. 

Oftentimes, management expects technology to be the magic pill to their existing problems. In truth, even with the right intention and utilizing the right technology, without the right processes and know-how, regardless of how complete or sophisticated the technology, digitalization can still fail.

The Case for One Platform to Manage All Business Needs

Is this a real possibility?

It is possible to have a single digital platform manage a significant portion, if not all, of a business’s needs, depending on the size, complexity, and industry of the organization. Such a platform is often referred to as an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system or a comprehensive Business Management Software (BMS).

These customized, fit-for-purpose digital solutions often come with prohibitively high upfront investment costs. Implementing a comprehensive ERP system can be complex and resource-intensive, requiring careful planning, customization, and training.

The reality is that not all businesses will find a single platform that perfectly fits all their needs. Some organizations may still require specialized software for certain functions or industries.

More Articles on Digitalization

– Improving Franchise Operations with Digitalization

– Digitalization as a Solution for Franchise Management

– Book A TreeAMS Demo